Issue number 509 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the agencies representing Europe’s big-5 league players according to the aggregate transfer value of their clients as per our exclusive statistical model.

The 508th Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 teams in the world with the most subscriptions on the following social networks : X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. The Spanish side of Real Madrid tops the list with over 470 million subscriptions, just ahead of their great rivals Barcelona (424 million).

Following the extension of his contract until 2031, FC Barcelona’s prodigy Lamine Yamal has become the player with the highest value on the transfer market according to the CIES Football Observatory statistical model : €402.3 million. This extraordinary figure is linked to equally extraordinary performances achieved at an age - 18 in July - when most players, even the best, are just starting out at professional level.

The 506th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the most influential footballers of the season in 60 leagues around the world. The index used to rank the players is calculated on the basis of their performances in six areas of the game thanks to the data exclusively produced by our partners Impect, the minutes played and the results obtained.

Issue number 505 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the top 100 of associations having exported the greatest number of footballers to 135 leagues around the world between 2020 and 2025. With no fewer than 3,020 distinct expatriates, Brazil is ahead of the last two World Cup winners : France (2,293) and Argentina (2,171).

The 504th edition of the Weekly Post presents the 100 players who changed clubs permanently during the last two transfer windows and whose current value would enable the teams owning them to make the biggest capital gains. Top of the list is Kylian Mbappé, who was signed for no transfer fee by Real Madrid last summer and is now valued at €182.5 million by the CIES Football Observatory statistical model.

The 503rd CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks teams from 65 leagues around the world according to the percentage of domestic league minutes in the current season played by footballers aged 21 or under at the time of the matches. Among the seven teams having fielded U21 players for a majority of minutes notably are RC Strasbourg (4th, 59.4%) and RB Salzburg (5th, 55.3%).

The CIES Football Observatory is delighted to announce a new partnership with the German data company Impect, a leader in the field of football analytics. On this occasion, th 502nd Weekly Post presents the 100 outfield players who have not yet turned 20 from 45 leagues outside the big-5 with the best values in terms of Impect PxT (Packing Expected Threat model), weighted by the sporting level of the matches played. 

The 501st CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post compares 65 leagues around the world in terms of the tenure of coaches at the head of the teams currently managed. On average, two-thirds of coaches have been in place for less than a year (65.6%). This percentage exceeds 90% in the top divisions of Ecuador and Costa Rica.

Thirteen years after the first issue, the CIES Football Observatory research team is very proud to present its 500th Weekly Post ! For the occasion, we highlight the footballers born in 2001 or later who have played the most official matches in senior competitions since the start of their careers, by year of birth.

The 499th Weekly Post presents the 100 best performing goalkeepers in the world over the past year, according to an index on a scale of 100 specifically devised by the CIES Football Observatory.

The 498th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks more than 900 clubs in 55 leagues worldwide according to a territorial anchorage index calculated from the proportion of national players and club-trained nationals among those fielded in the domestic league over the last year. The Colombians of Envigado lead the way with 93.8% nationals and 54.2% club-trained nationals.

In this Weekly Post, the CIES Football Observatory analyses the differences observed over the last year between 63 leagues worldwide in terms of referees’ propensity to hand out penalty cards for fouls. Referees in Japan’s top two divisions are the least likely to issue cards for fouls (around one penalty card every ten fouls), while the opposite is true in Chile and Colombia (around one card every five fouls).

The 496th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks the teams of 37 leagues around the world according to the percentage of ‘minutes secured’, i.e. the share of the current season’s domestic league minutes played by footballers still under contract with a duration beyond the year 2026. Chelsea tops the list with 91.8% of minutes secured.

The 495th CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the world’s 100 best performing players from an attacking perspective in terms of their statistics in three areas of the game: take on, chance creation and finishing. Michael Olise tops the rankings with an average index of 88.5 in these three domains and a maximum value of 99.0 in chance creation.

Issue number 494 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 players from outside the big-5 European leagues whose transfer value has risen the most over the last six months. At the top of the list is Porto’s Spanish striker Samu Aghehowa, second top scorer in the Portuguese top flight, with an increase of €39 million (from €29.6m to €68.6m).

To celebrate its twenty years of existence and pay tribute to the clubs developing the talent that makes us love football, the CIES Football Observatory is very proud to present a study of the teams that have trained the most players fielded in Europe’s big-5 over the last two decades. The top three are Real Madrid (166 players), Barcelona (156) and Paris St-Germain (111).

Using technical data collected by our partners Wyscout, the CIES Football Observatory has developed various synthetic indices on a base of 100 to measure the level of performance of players in six areas of the game (more details ici). This Weekly Post presents the hundred U23 midfielders from 46 leagues around the world with the highest values in ground defence.